Striking Care Staff End Two Months Of Action

A two-month strike which shut day care centres for adults with learning and physical disabilities across Glasgow has ended.

{mosimage}A narrow majority of the 250-plus social care staff, all members of Unison, voted yesterday to return to work after an offer by the city council on pay and gradings was accepted. All return to work on Monday, with a pledge that current earnings are protected. There had been some concern that the strikers would reject the deal, despite its recommendation by Unison leaders.

Advice by union officials not to strike until the local authority had published its blueprint for the reform of the day care service had been rejected at the outset of the action.

Union sources talked yesterday of a “wind of change” blowing through the council following threats that other social work departments were primed for their own walkouts, while some within the local authority spoke of “strike fatigue” within Unison.

Both sides are still poles apart in what has been achieved through the action.

Mike Kirby, Unison’s Glasgow branch secretary, said: “This settlement gives these people the grades they were looking for but our view is the council could have come forward with this weeks ago.

“It’s taken eight weeks for them to realise the original grade was wrong.”

A city council spokesman said: “It’s sad that the union decided to take these workers out on strike for two months when the bare bones of this deal was on the table before this action started.”

The action was spurred by the city council’s pay and benefits review, which Unison said would cut staff to a level which would threaten services, while there were major concerns that changes to the pay structure would cost staff between £3000 and £6000 a year.

There are also major reservations about the authority’s proposed reform of social work services, with five day care centres and two satellites closing as the council moves to “redesign and improve services”.

Described by staff themselves as “Glasgow’s silent strike”, the action nevertheless generated significant disruption for some of the most vulnerable adults in the city.

Families had also been asked to close ranks and share responsibilities for the duration of the strike, the disruption polarising those who have felt the impact greatest.

Some families complained that their children were suffering, with relatives forced to give up work to provide care, laying the blame at the inability of the council and strikers to reach a compromise.

Others had gone as far as joining the daily picket lines and accompanying strikers to the Scottish Parliament to hand over a petition.

Despite eight weeks without pay some of those on strike insisted there was the resolve to continue while admitting to major financial hardships they had endured maintaining the action.

Isabel Kerr, a 44-year-old mother-of-two and carer based in Riddrie in the east end, said: “There will be no Christmas this year.

“Walking through town you’ve got to ignore the people with their shopping because it won’t be us this year. It’s back to basics this year.”

Mandy Johnstone, who is also based at Riddrie, said: “We didn’t get down. We couldn’t afford to get down or to let others get depressed.

“We’ve only our friends, family and donations to thank for getting us through.”

Sam McCartney, Unison’s day care convener, said: “The job for the city council now is to build up the confidence of the carers, who have totally lost faith that it couldn’t resolve this dispute before now.

“We’re where we want to be, addressing the reforms with the carers.”

A council source said: “It must be really painful for the union having to go back to the membership with nothing.

“This was always on the table. This time the council wasn’t even willing to allow Unison to present this as a victory.”